Conventional sonars all lack, in one degree or another, the ability to recognize and discriminate targets of interest. This limitation seems to affect all sonars which attempt to discern targets of interest from false targets which are either stationary or moving very slowly (low-doppler targets). Narrow band sonars lack sufficient range resolution and information capacity to perform target discrimination. Most broadband sonar processors work only under ideal conditions in which there are high signal-to-noise ratios since they are inclined to perform poorly in conditions of moderate and low signal-to-noise ratios. In addition, the ability to generalize target features tends to be lacking so that the broadband sonar processors require the storage capability for unwieldy amounts of information on all possible targets in all possible orientations. As a consequence, broadband sonar technology is unsatisfactory as can be seen by the lack of a single operational broadband pulsed active sonar system.
Thus a continuing need extis in the state-of-the art for providing a high-resolution, broadband pulse sonar that is able to recognize and discriminate between underwater targets.